Review: Animals Who Want To Be Other Animals (Geordie Dialect Version)

Caveat: A request to review KateGoes’ debut album Animals Who Want To Be Other Animals was met with an express stipulation from the band that they would sanction a review only upon the precondition that it be written in a (to quote) ‘geordie accent‘. Whether this represents a progressive female re-appropriation of the male critical voice or is a matter of ethics in indie music journalism is open to debate. I will stress that any offence caused by the clumsiness of my aping of the Newcastle accent is wholly unintentional. It is worth noting at this juncture that in order for me to render the review in native dialect I have made recourse to a combination of translation software, academic research and personal observation. Thank you.

Animals needs ‘The Silence’, which is simply a track iv silence, evon though includin a minute-odd lang track simply iv silence on an album that clocks in at just owor half-an-hoor seems cheeky at best. Whey aye, John Cage hez already famously performed an’ recorded an entirely silent composition, ‘4′33″’, the interest iv which lees in both its concept an’ also in the heightened appreciation iv audience sounds an’ neeises while listenin tuh the piece played in a concert haal. Listenin tuh ‘The Silence’ on headphones fo’ the forst time ah mostly expected tuh be suddenly surprised by a geet loud neeise an’ see sat throo the track in a state iv intense feor an’ apprehension. This likely says mare abyeut wor than KateGoes. Whey aye, KateGoes is neet the anny band tuh include a wholly silent sang on their record like. A wee glance at Wikipedia‘s comprehensive list iv ‘silent musical compositions’ reveals artists as vareed as Télépopmusik, Wilco, Orbital, John Denvor, Coheed an’ Cambria, Gully Portee an’ Coil as havin done the syem. Me favourite example iv the silent composition is perhaps closor tuh wot KateGoes is attemptin, which is on Jack off Jill’s wonderful Cleor Hearts Grey Floo-az, on which fifty-two silent six-second tracks separate the album’s penultimate sang from a covor iv The Cure’s ‘Lovesong’, makin the lattor stand-yeut aaal the mare (helpfully it also happens tuh be a brilliant covor!)